Friday, 18 October 2013

Animal Parts - Where The Heart Is/Grey Owl Call, the

Singles reviewed by kev@thesoundofconfusion.co.uk

Toronto band Animal Parts have only been together for fourteen months and are on the verge of their third release in that time. A lot of bands are still working on a debut single and playing their first gigs by this point, but (and without knowing much of their past), this quintet sound far more experienced than a group whose first forays into the world of music were made last year. This is guesswork, but they sound too mature to be a bunch of teens (and there are some awesome teenage bands out there), they sound like they've all done the whole band thing before. So maybe Animal Parts is a collection of seasoned musicians who could happily perform a live gig with any rock-type band after just a couple of rehearsals. We're told that 25 year-old singer Joshua Cockerill has past form, but that's about it. This is the sound of mid-career; that hunger is still there, nothing's turned sour but the songs flow as freely as random thoughts, almost without having to make a conscious effort.

These two singles from new EP 'Six Arms To Hold You' will see their already sizeable fanbase swell further. This isn't a typo, so we can't quite work out what 'Grey Owl Call, the' is all about as a song title. It's a strange one for sure. But the song is classic and you can see where these comparisons to Neil Young, Wilco and so on have come from. It's alt-rock with a very North American feel, incorporating a touch of country along the way, but the band are fluid and everything is taken comfortably in their stride, thus preventing them being bogged-down like many similar bands. 'Where The Heart is' is the one that will persuade fans of this form of music go out and but the trio of records this band have available. It's pretty perfectly done and encapsulates both the genre and the aforementioned fluidity of the band. These guys have good songs, yes. But in other hands the results might not be so great. It's the fact that they seem to gel, operating perfectly as a unit that marks them out as something special. Uncut will be all over these guys before long.